I walked into a clearing surrounded by trees. Wind blew through me, sending a chill up my spine. In the center of the open space was an inviting campfire. I approached it hungrily, eager to dispel the freezing darkness, but a cold breeze buffeted me, threatening to extinguish my life along with the dwindling fire. Not again, I thought, recalling an impression. A memory came to mind of a small flame that went out, leaving only a tendril of smoke. I pushed against the wind with all of my being, refusing to lose what may be my final hope at saving myself.

After a brief conflict, I’d made it to the fire. A deep breath of its warmth was enough to combat the cold. I couldn’t remember why, but I knew I had to keep moving. I picked up the dry ends of the wood wet with fire and carried it with me into the forest.

My face pressed against something hard. I was exhausted. I didn’t have the strength to lift myself. I couldn’t tell how long I laid there. A car slowed and pulled up next to me. The driver door opened, and clacking heels rushed toward me.

“For fuck’s sake, Jay,” an annoyed woman’s voice said.

“Language,” I slurred as I was pulled to my feet and pushed into the passenger seat of a silver sedan. It wasn’t until the driver got back into the car that I saw Al in her business attire. It was torn up and had blood on it.

“Hey Al,” I managed to get out. “How was your day?”

She grunted almost in a laugh.

“Here,” She said holding out her arm. “But don’t take too much, I’ve barely recovered.” My stump bumped against her wrist. I blinked away some of the fog. Concern passed over her face briefly.

“Oh yeah,” I said blearily and rested my arm on hers, pulling in what I could. Apparently, her ‘barely recovered’ was more than my usual reserves, but I heeded her request. I took only what I needed to think clearly and feel somewhat normal. After removing my awkwardly resting stump from her arm, I took a deep breath in and exhaled.

“Try not to get my car too dirty,” Al said, but there was amusement in her voice, and perhaps something else. Relief?

I looked down to a familiar sight. My bloody, muddy, orange prison garb with a hole in the chest, and a couple tears. I was about to turn to smile at Al but stopped myself. I was afraid she’d remember the phone call and it’d ruin the light atmosphere in the car.

I looked back to see a motley crew of an uninjured Dale, an unconscious Cara with a shiner forming around one eye, and a bloodied, bruised, and puffy Shawn.

I handlessly waved with a smile. “Hey guys.”

“Hey Jesse,” Dale replied jovially. “Looks like you’ve had as much fun as we have.”

“I’d say I’ve had even more,” I said, matching his demeanor.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he said looking at the back of Al’s head. From the corner of my eye, I saw her scowl.

“Well, I guess we can trade stories when we get back to my apartment.”

“About that…” Dale said drawing out the words. He averted his eyes. “It kind of got destroyed.”

“Even more?” I asked incredulously. Dale looked sheepishly at the back of Al’s head again.

“We may have blown it up. And by that, I mean Al blew it up.” I was all out of reactions for the day, so I just settled back into my chair.

“Oh well,” I said. “It wasn’t like I had anything of value.”

“We’re going to my house,” Shawn said between two swollen lips. “Just turn right here, then in a few miles, turn left into the Prestige Community. Go straight for a few blocks, hang another left onto Dazzling Lane, and my house is the third one on the right.” All of us pursed our lips. He rolled his eyes. “I know. Shut up.”

Al silently followed his directions and pulled onto a driveway lined with privacy trees. There was a long path which led to a wrought iron gate with a guard station. We slowed and stopped next to it. Al rolled down her window and a man leaned in to inspect the interior of the vehicle. Surprise was plastered across his face, especially when he got to Shawn’s battered appearance.

“Master Ellison!” the guard exclaimed.

“Just let us through, Andy,” Shawn said with a dismissive wave.

“Yes, sir. Right away, sir.” The man replied, rushing back to his station. The gate opened, and we drove inside while the man stared at Al with a wanting smile.

Even more driveway led to a massive building made of aged bricks and draped ivy that couldn’t even be called a house. The pavement continued under an overhang above the front entrance. Past it was an area the size of a small parking lot. The driveway curved in one direction and down into the mansion, as if its basement were a parking structure. There were also two detached garages, each the size of a regular house.

Al ignored all of it and parked in front. Several butlers came to open each door, but Al didn’t wait. She got out and walked past them toward tall, intricately carved double doors. She went inside as if she owned the place.

I shook my head, and patiently waited for the butlers’ gentlemanly gesture of holding open my door. They proceeded to guide us into the chateau if that term was interchangeable with castle-mansion. It was the first time I’d seen such an extravagant home. I mean, Al’s condo was nice, but it was minimalist with most of the space allotted for training.

Shawn waved away the servants, but I didn’t want to waste the opportunity to be treated like royalty. After the day I’d been having, I could use a bit of pampering. I lifted my only hand and cleared my throat obnoxiously to get the butlers’ attention.

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“Jeeves… Jeeveses, I’d like some tiny sausages with toothpicks in them. Also, bring us those little pieces of bread with tomato and cheese and other stuff on them. And honestly, what gathering doesn’t have jumbo shrimp?” I looked at Dale who clearly agreed. He had Cara draped over one shoulder. “Do rich people eat pizza? Dale, you want anything?”

“Naturally,” he said in his best haughty accent with a flair of his hand. “No meal is complete without caviar and truffles.” I nodded appreciatively. As we joined her inside, Al joined our order.

“Wine. Red.”

“Yes, and bring me a glass of your finest scotch,” I added. I didn’t even like scotch, but I always wanted to say that. The Jeeveses looked over at Shawn, who rolled his eyes, nodded, and waved them away. Dale and my smiles filled our entire faces.

“C’mon,” Shawn said lacking our enthusiasm. He guided us to a sitting room with furniture that looked like it had never been used. The couches were a pristine white. I didn’t hesitate to leap onto one and rub my muddy and bloody face into an uncomfortable decorative throw pillow. The sofa was no longer white after my antics. When I sat up to look at Shawn’s unamused face, he asked, “Are you done?”

“Of course not,” I replied with an unapologetic smile which fell. “Fine. Why don’t you guys tell me what happened to you?”

“Oh. My. God. Jesse,” Dale said excitedly. “It was crazy.”

“Cara escaped, we found her, and now we’re here. The end,” Shawn droned. Al scoffed from halfway across the room. She sat at a long fancy table, looking bored.

“If you’re going to tell it, tell it right,” Dale said. “Here’s what really happened.”

“Al had to go do some lawyery things to get you out of jail and me and Leah had to go home. She works third shift and hadn’t slept yet. Also, we had to take a shower. I smelled like smoke and she was impressed by my television stardom, so...” He waggled his eyebrows at me. I snorted.

“Anyway, we left Cara with Shawn, and I gave him specific instructions not to act like himself and screw everything up. As usual, he didn’t listen.” Dale shook his head at Shawn, then continued. “So, me and Al get back to your apartment building around the same time. It’s obvious something is wrong because Al gets attacked as soon as we get off the elevator. When we got to your place, Shawn is just standing there in the middle of the room, next to an empty chair. He nodded to me in greeting, then out of nowhere, he rushes Al, but being the badass that she is,”

I crossed my arms and gave him a nonplused glare. “Language.”

“Sorry, being the—what’s another name for that?” he asked.

“Monster,” Shawn said. Al knocked back a glass of blood red wine which was attentively refilled by a Jeeves. The manservant stood next to her holding a bottle. Before I could feel disappointment from her getting special treatment, the other butlers started delivering our requests as well. Dale continued his tale.

“She dodged and punched him in the back of the head, sending him to the floor. We tried to ask him what he was doing, but he just ignored us and kept trying to fight Al. Finally, she went to end the fight, by stuffing him into the floor, but he hit her with lightning. That’s when she got serious and threw him out the window.” Dale said. My face brightened with glee. I hastily swallowed a jumbo shrimp before jumping in.

“Fatality!” Trying to imitate the iconic video game phrase. “Too bad, he didn’t fall into a pit of spikes.” I said in my regular voice.

“I thought so too, but when I looked, he wasn’t dead. He started crawling back toward the building! You believe that?”

I nodded, stuffing another shrimp in my mouth. “Actually, yeah. He’s like a cockroach that keeps coming back.”

Dale grinned. “Anyway, we started searching for Cara, but your neighbors showed up. For some reason, they were only interested in fighting Al, so she told me to find Cara and knock her out. That’s when I left. When I got a couple floors down, there was a huge explosion that shook the whole building. That’s why I said your apartment got blown up,” he explained. I grimaced, knowing exactly when that happened.

“After a few floors, I found Cara and punched her in the face before she could use her mojo on me. Knocked her out in one hit. All the fighting stopped, thanks to me of course,” Dale said with pride. I nodded furiously, impressed.

“The elevator was out from the explosion, so Al and I met up and went down the stairs together. When we got to the lobby, Shawn was waiting all confused, as if he hadn’t just been thrown off a building.” Dale gestured to him. “As you can see, Al woke him from his stupor and taught him a valuable lesson.”

She sneered. “Yeah, not to piss me off.”

Dale nodded. “Bree was recording the whole thing, but I wasn’t about to have a video of me on the internet carrying a teenage white girl, so I smashed her phone. I can’t tell you how satisfying that was. Anyways, when we got outside, there were a bunch of people in the street staring at the burning building. Most of them ignored us, but Pietro came up and handed us a pizza, staring at Al with his mouth wide open.

“We tried to walk away with the food, but he handed Al a note. You know, you could have just called,” he said. “Anyway, I ate it all in case you were wondering. And FYI, you can just put everything in the main message. You don’t need to use like eight P.S.’s”

I shrugged.

“Al looked super annoyed when she read it, then told us we had to go bail you out, Shawn was conscious at this point as well. If that wasn’t all great enough, here’s the best part,” Dale said, as if building suspense to deliver the punchline to a joke. “Pietro holds out his hand for money, right? And Al stares directly into his eyes, looks down at her torn up clothes, then back at him and goes: ‘You already got your payment.’ And walks away without another word.”

Dale put his hands next to his head and rose them into the air as if his mind just exploded, sound effect and everything. I scowled.

“Al, you can’t pay for pizza with your body,” I admonished. I realized my mistake as soon as the words left my mouth. Dale stared at me aghast, but with glee in his eyes. I turned slowly to look at Al covering my mouth. To my surprise, she smirked and shook her head knowingly.

“I didn’t have any cash on me,” she said then sighed. “There, you’re all caught up. Now, are you going to heal me or not?”

“Oh corpses. I forgot you got stabbed,” I said sympathetically. “I got stabbed too. Guy got me right in the eye with a kitchen knife.” I stopped gorging myself and went over to stand next to her. Her attention stayed on her wine. I rested my still existing hand on her wound and turned to the others.

“That was cool and all, but my story is so much better. It all started when I got to my cell. Everyone respected me almost immediately. They were so impressed with me that they gave me an awesome nickname: ‘Ghost’.” I smirked, then shrugged nonchalantly. “They wanted to call me ‘The Revenant’, but I guess it was already taken by a guy upstate. My cellmate was this dude called Bucket.”

Suddenly, Al winced in pain.

“Is this some kind of sick joke or payback?” she growled. I pulled my hand back reflexively. When I looked at her arm, her wound was inflamed and oozing pus. I looked down at my hand and it had a strange greenish wetness to it. I stared at it with confusion then up at Al, whose face lit up with fury. She bared her teeth and backhanded me across the room, knocking the wind out of me.

She rose from her chair and flames exploded from the gash in her arm, cauterizing it instantly. Her heels struck the floor with purpose as she slowly stalked toward me. I felt too groggy to understand what was happening. My head lulled to one side. There was a shiny piece of art next to me that curled and flowed around itself. It looked like a portal.

Inside was the face of a man, thin and gaunt, as if a vampire had sucked all the blood out of him. The looping metal sculpture made his face look disjointed and broken. I moved my arm to feel my face, and my rounded stump touched my cheek. The gesture was mirrored by the man that looked back at me, he was also missing a hand.

When I met his gaze, I wasn’t sure whether to feel horror or despair. His eyes—my eyes, weren’t white, or silver, or gray—they were black.